Summary
The text opens with a narrator musing about his fascination with trees. He thinks about how important trees have been in his life—how a fall from a tree cost him his ability to perform on the violin, how he lost his virginity under a tree, and how his wife was executed under a tree. He tells us that the other big reason he is so enraptured by trees is that they are not allowed in the ghetto in which he lives. Then the narrator begins to tell the reader a story that he has "tried hundreds of times to unload."
We are introduced to Jacob, another citizen of the ghetto. On the night the story begins, Jacob is walking hurriedly so as to avoid being outside after the ghetto's eight o'clock curfew. However, Jacob is caught by a German sentry, who tells him that he is in violation of the curfew. The sentry instructs Jacob to report to the duty officer inside the nearby military office for his punishment. Despite his knowledge that "the chances of a Jew leaving this building alive are very poor," Jacob enters the military building and walks through a corridor until he hears sounds coming from behind one of the doors. He pauses at the door to listen but is caught behind it when it opens and a person leaves. Hidden behind the door, he hears a radio—a banned item in the ghetto—through which an announcer reports that German troops recently defeated the Russian army twelve miles outside the nearby town of Bezanika. After the individual returns, Jacob finds his jacket stuck in the closed door. He begins to pull at the sleeve, having realized that he cannot see the duty officer without wearing the yellow stars that are sewn into the jacket, when the door is opened again. The man who opened the door directs Jacob to the duty officer's room.
In the room, Jacob sees a clock that reads 7:36, revealing that the sentry who sent him to the military office had lied about it being after curfew. The duty officer is asleep on a sofa; Jacob wakes him up by knocking on the inside of the door. Jacob explains the situation, and the duty officer lets him leave, which Jacob regards as extraordinary. He sneaks home, wishing to avoid being detected by the sentry outside. As Jacob is heading home, he hears the sentry on the phone and imagines it is the duty officer chastising the sentry for deceiving Jacob.
In Chapter 2, the narrator tells us about Jacob's two roommates, both of whom are dead. Nathan Rosenblatt died a year before the story takes place because he ate a dead cat. Jacob's other roommate, Josef Piwowa, was killed by a foreman in the shoe factory where he was employed because he angered the foreman. Jacob returns home and tells his dead roommates what he heard from the radio—that the Russian army is close to their ghetto.
Chapter 3 begins with the narrator addressing the reader directly to introduce himself. He says he is alive and undemanding, unlike Josef Piwowa, and he is content. He reveals that he was born in 1921 and is 46, meaning that he is recounting this story in 1967. We learn that he is now in a relationship with a woman named Elvira, who asked him once about his experience during the war, causing him to leave the room for half an hour. Lastly, we learn that he now lives in a town with plenty of greenery, but when he looks at a tree he never has "that rapturous look ... for it's not the right tree."
Chapter 4 returns to the text's main narrative. It is the day after Jacob's experience in the military office, and Jacob is at the freight yard, where he works. He knows that what he learned through the radio about the Russian army is huge news, and while he has no plans to tell anyone this information, "neither had he planned not to tell anyone." After realizing that nobody yet knows what he does, Jacob begins his job of moving crates to a freight car. He is working with Mischa, a strong man with rare blue eyes. Mischa is distracted by one of the freight cars and tells Jacob that it has potatoes inside it. Mischa begins to consider stealing the potatoes, an act that Jacob considers to be too risky. In an attempt to divert Mischa, Jacob tells him that the Russians are approaching Bezanika. However, Mischa does not believe Jacob and continues to watch the sentries for the moment when they will not notice him stealing the potatoes. He ignores Jacob's explanation about the military office.
Just as Mischa is about to launch himself at the freight car, Jacob jumps on him, grabbing his leg. Mischa pulls himself free and is about to run to the freight car when Jacob tells Mischa that he has a radio—a lie that causes the bigger man to stop in his tracks. Thrilled at this news, Mischa seems not to even notice when he is beaten by a Nazi corporal for being on the ground. After the beating, Mischa and Jacob resume moving crates.
The narrator tells us that what happens next is predictable: Mischa will not be able to keep the secret to himself, despite Jacob's request that he do so. He will be overjoyed and will try to spread that joy to the ghetto, and he will reveal Jacob as his source. Next, people will begin to come to Jacob for more news. The narrator asks, "what on earth is he going to tell them?"
At the beginning of Chapter 6, is the same day at the freight yard, and Mischa keeps winking, smiling, and waving to Jacob from across the yard. Jacob finds that he is also happy because of the news. He plays a game in which every time he moves a crate, he walks directly in front of a dozing sentry, temporarily depriving him of sunlight.
Noon is signaled by a man whom the workers call the Whistle due to the whistle that he blows to indicate lunchtime. The workers line up for their food; today it is the narrator's turn to distribute the food. After Jacob is seated, his friend Kowalski arrives and sits down next to him. Kowalski first asks Jacob if there is any news, and, when Jacob does not answer, asks explicitly about the Russians. Jacob confirms the rumor but asks Kowalski not to tell anyone. As lunch ends, Jacob feels many people's eyes on him. He realizes that some or many of them already know the secret.
Analysis
Becker immediately establishes the comic tone of the novel in these early chapters. First, there is the sentry's claim about it being after curfew, which, in an example of situational irony, is revealed suddenly to be a lie. Becker writes, "They’ve been having you on, or not they, just that one fellow behind the searchlight, he’s been having you on, and you fell for it." This passage also includes another important stylistic element of the text, its occasional switch into second-person narration.
The discussion of Jacob's dead roommates, Rosenblatt and Piwowa, is yet another example of the novel's comic tone. This also helps to establish the novel's setting, which is one in which death is frequent and mundane. Rosenblatt and Piwowa are treated like regular roommates, except for the fact that they are dead. Jacob, upon returning home to his apartment, wishes to address them: "Open your eyes, Nathan Rosenblatt; stop quarreling, Piwowa." Clearly, the novel occurs in a setting where death has lost much of its shock and significance.
The main conflict in the text is introduced in Chapter 4, when Jacob tells Mischa that he knows the Russians are advancing toward their ghetto because he has a prohibited radio. In chapter 5, the narrator foreshadows Jacob's coming crisis, saying, "People will come to Jacob, to Heym the possessor of a radio, and want to hear the latest news; they will come with eyes such as Jacob has never seen before." As we will see, this is precisely what happens to Jacob, and it all but destroys him.
We are introduced to the novel's protagonist and antagonist in this section. Jacob Heym, the narrator tells us, is a former shop owner who is now a resident of the ghetto. He is characterized as being "scared like all the rest of us," though the narrator acknowledges that "without him, this whole damn story could never have happened." The antagonist of the novel is implicitly introduced through the narrator's descriptions of the restrictions in the ghetto. He says, for example, that Hardtloff introduced an ordinance that outlaws ornamental or edible plants in the ghetto, among other similar rules. This characterization clearly establishes the Nazi Party as the novel's primary antagonist.
A few secondary antagonists are also introduced in this section. First, the narrator references Hardtloff, who is a head official in the ghetto. Additionally, we meet the Whistle, who works at the freight yard. The Whistle's name is an example of metonymy, as he is referred to by the name of his defining attribute, the whistle he blows to signal lunchtime. Other important characters introduced are Mischa, who works at the freight yard with Jacob; Kowalski, Jacob's old friend and another worker at the freight yard; and the narrator himself.
In sum, this section lays the thematic and narrative groundwork for the rest of the novel. The reader is introduced to many of the text's main themes, including death, deception, memory, and comedy. Additionally, we learn of many of the main characters and conflicts that will guide the text.
